Glendale Cocaine Rehab - Cocaine's Toll on the Brain

Glendale Cocaine Rehab - Chronic cocaine use has a powerful and lasting effect on the structure and function of the brain.

Compared to those of non-users, the brains of cocaine addicts demonstrate blood flow that is abnormal and slow. This impairment may be the cause of the learning difficulties, attention deficits, memory loss, and strokes that often accompany cocaine dependence.

"It only takes a small amount of cocaine to constrict blood vessels in the brains of young, healthy men who are occasional users of the drug," stated Dr. Marc Kaufman, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School. "That has never been shown before, and we think that many episodes of such narrowing can lead to brain dysfunction or damage."

What makes the narrowing of the the blood vessels even more dangerous is that users often combine cocaine with other drugs, such as heroin and alcohol. This dangerous combination radically increases the users' risk of stroke and vascular damage.